Contactless transaction systems use secure contactless smart card for transaction purposes. Some exemplary transaction systems include transportation—transit cards, authentication and identity cards, parking cards, and phone cards. An exemplary secure contactless smart card is the MIFARE® card from NXP Semiconductors or an iClass® card from HID Global. Certain conventional smart cards use radio frequency identification (RFID) standards to transmit and receive information to and from a card reader device. RFID based contactless smart card devices are supported via the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission standard (ISO/IEC) 14443 for smart cards and card readers. Certain contactless smart cards may include multiple electronic components, such as an antenna and secure memory. Additionally, certain contactless smart cards also may include supporting semiconductor components, such as a memory management unit, a processor, and a cryptographic generator.
The different types of software applications or application data memory areas include random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), and non-volatile flash memory. These memory areas may be secure memory areas for secure information required to access software applications for such purposes as external secure access systems, membership, or payment purposes. Further, each secure memory area is assigned specific application functions included in the secure element area within the contactless smart card. Certain low-end contactless smart cards may not offer significant processing capabilities; these smart cards may communicate only a radio frequency with information from a passive memory.
Certain contactless smart cards include a platform for hardware and software that supports both EMV (electronic credit card standards) and MIFARE® operating functions. Such cards further include a processor for retaining different areas within combined or separated secure elements of the contactless smart card device. Contactless smart cards are available in different memory sizes, for example, a 4 KB of EEPROM (flash memory) or a 1 KB EEPROM package. However, certain widely used smart cards do not have any intelligent processing capability and are software coded such that certain memory areas alone can be read by certain card readers. In many widely used contactless transaction cards, such as the MIFARE Classic®, a limited amount of resources are available within the smart card to enable further development. For example, on a 4 KB card, a requirement may exist that all of the 4 KB should be active within the card at any given time.
In some secure element namespaces, also referred to as “memory areas” within contactless cards, the available memory is statically partitioned. The card reader is encoded to read certain ones of the partitions. Accordingly, the card reader may read only from the pre-determined partitions. Further, each secure memory area is assigned specific application functions, included in the secure element area within the contactless smart card. A 4 KB contactless smart card includes data memory areas are typically divided into about 40 sectors, with 32 sectors of 4 blocks each and 8 sectors of 16 blocks each. One block is dedicated to manufacturer information for the contactless smart card, while a sector may be dedicated to a pre-installed application directory configured to direct an external card reader to one of several software applications stored in the contactless smart card. The application directory may point the external card reader to the application stored by the sector in which the application is stored. Accordingly, the data memory areas store applications by sectors and un-used memory blocks in a sector may be left idle.